First there was Alfie, then Nana and Spencer. For a while, there was Jake and Danny. Now there's Michael, Eddie, Tyler and Anthony. EastEnders has more Moons than Jupiter. Still more are promised, hopefully Keith, Gibbous and Reverend. A controlled culling programme will follow that.

With Alfie and Kat away – the only reason they go on holiday is so that some time in the future Alfie can mawkishly recall how they stood on a seafront somewhere and resolved to grow old together while Kat, even beneath two coats of Cuprinol Forest Oak, visibly blanches at the prospect – Eddie and sons have taken centre stage.

Michael Moon, rendered a blank-faced psycho by finding his mum's body when a nipper, blames Eddie for her death. Eddie wears waistcoats and is David Essex. While Anthony is the putative Sensitive One, Tyler is an incorrigible snatch hound who would mount a bag of clothes left out on the pavement if Age Concern didn't collect it quickly enough. Tyler, ironically played by the superbly named Tony Discipline, also has a filthy temper, so far reserved for the market inspectorate's rhyming mini Hitler, Mr Lister. Eddie, needing premises for his tatty antiques business, conned his way in to a curiously never-noticed-before lock up behind the market. Not, however, before his entire stock was torched in the middle of the Square by new arrival Lola.

Lola is the granddaughter of Billy and Julie, ponging's power couple. Also, because she's a girl joining a continuing drama, Lola is a bit of a wild child. One day, a girl will join a soap who is not feisty, a bit of a rebel, a loose cannon with an eye for the boys and a mouth that's always getting her into trouble. She will meet a young man who is not a bit of a chancer, a charmer with an eye for the girls, a headstrong jack the lad who, a soap insider can promise, is set to ruffle a few feathers. On that day, all soaps will end. In the meantime, Lola has set her cap at Jay and tried to ambush his special night of romance with Abi. She needn't have bothered, as Abi mysteriously went off the idea of being deflowered in a garage, however thoughtfully Jay may have prepped the back of the conjugal car with a quick squirt of Febreze Morning Dew Mist and cued up Now That's What I Call A Teenager Chewing Off His Own Fist In Sexual Frustration Vol 8 on The Arches' boombox.

In Coronation Street, Sophie and Sian, captivated by the proselytizing of Ken Barlow's grandson James, embraced the cause of the homeless and began to regurgitate platitudes about second chances and society's cracks. Kevin remained unimpressed and unreconstructed and went understandably batshit on discovering that Sophie had siphoned £20,000 out of his bank account (move over £5k, £20k is the new Significant Amount of Money in soaps) to support the Roof & Refuge charity. The whole thing turned out to be a con trick, though, and – to be honest – the dodginess of the entire enterprise couldn't have been more obvious had it been called Scam & Sap. The girls should've smelled a rat long before turning up at the soup kitchen to find builders working on an empty shell. This in itself raised a number of questions: first, why were a bunch of bemused homeless people not still ambling about wondering where the scotch broth had gone? Were they in on it, too? Just what was the profit margin on this scam? Left high and dry by his shadowy collaborators, desperate James – a young Tom Cruise playing Beaker from The Muppets – tried to taking the equity from Ken's house without him noticing. Ken noticed, so James decked him and scarpered.

Meanwhile, slightly overprotective Gary stuck to girlfriend Izzy like glue, even getting a job in Underworld so he could monitor her as she stitched gussets. After Izzy escaped his clutches for a night out and was duly mugged, Gary flipped into action, locking himself and Izzy in their flat, occasionally peeping through the blinds and muttering about "sightlines". Where everybody else would look out on to the street and see Norris changing the Weatherfield Gazette headline display, Gary could evidently see the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.

In Emmerdale, Aaron and Hazel could've been forgiven for thinking the worst was behind them. But having assisted the suicide of tetraplegic boyfriend Jackson, Aaron had to deal with the minor inconvenience of standing trial for his murder. He got off, thanks mainly to the video testimony of the deceased, recorded for just such an eventuality and expressing his soundness of mind and unequivocal desire to die. So prescient, in fact, was Jackson's statement, that you half-expected him to break off half way through to compliment juror No 3 on her floral maxi dress. Mum Hazel, meanwhile, turned Dale Head into a shrine to Jackson, although one stocked with old school trophies rather than the more traditional rhinestone glove or platinum disc for Off The Wall. Hazel was reluctant to see the specially adapted house unadapted again, although the special adaptation had seemed principally to consist of putting a bed in the living room.

Elsewhere, Amy reluctantly colluded in a housewarming party at the barn conversion without the knowledge of guardians Val and Eric. Twelve-year old Belle got bladdered on cider and threw up on the new carpet and shame descended on the Dingle family. Normally they'd expect one of the their own to hold twice as much booze at that age.